Perspective

I wrote this on my phone this morning at 5:15 AM. There may be typos and other errors. I will try to correct them in time. I will need a minute. I will need several.

Last night someone that I love beyond measure sent me these two cards. She was asking questions about the outcome of the election and she was scared. I woke up to her message and to the devastating news. I will attempt to explain the meaning here.

I have been saying this in my work for a long time. If we are unable to truly look inside of ourselves, to gain some real perspective, to consider our shadows where we benefit from the suffering of others. If we can’t or don’t or won’t allow that what is good for us may not be good for everyone else, if we can’t or don’t or won’t consider that we have a history of violent racism, violent, terrorism within our own borders, where people who are your friends and neighbors have felt terrified, terrorized, and then shamed for the fear they have been gaslit to believe is not “as serious” as all that. If we cannot allow that stockpiling and hoarding and hiding in our homes, our gilded cages of our own making does not create community, then we will be the rot and we will ruin everything we touch.

I have been moved by the expression ever since I heard it,

Biography makes biology

And we are creating virulent cancerous cells and regenerating them, allowing them to mutate. We tell ourselves we look alright out on the outside but we are lying. Lying to ourselves and everyone around us. We are lying to our children. We are lying.

And the work we have to do is not lip service. I’m 54 years old and have had more than my share of that.

And darkness was upon the land

We are being asked to heal in ways so deep it will last generations. We are being asked to remember our souls’ journeys, to remember that we are here for such a short time that we must, in order for our species and all species around us to survive, dig deeper into our very beings and find love. Not the saccharine, pat on the back, short hug love. But the kind that humbles and takes our breath.

I come from a lineage of Black women and men of courage and strength and humility. My generation of us is one of the first to live in such close proximity to white people. I’d come back to my grandmother’s knee and regale her with tales about my community and my neighborhood. She always asked me,

Are they nice to you? Are these white people good?

And I defended them. I said, yes, Grandma. And she loved me so hard that she wanted it to be true. She also knew that we knew how to live on the fringe of your whims, your centering, and your trends.

We will reap what has been sewn. We need to dig up the rows and find the rot or there is no point in planting.